Overthinking About Burnout

When we first aired this episode in 2024, burnout felt like the defining emotional state of modern life. Two years later… honestly, not much has improved. If anything, burnout has shape-shifted. The girlboss hustle era may be less aspirational than it once was, but it’s been replaced by new flavors of exhaustion: constant digital overwhelm, economic anxiety, doomscrolling, and the strange pressure to be “healing” productively at all times. So this week, we’re revisiting Amanda’s conversation with the brilliant Amelia Nagoski (⁠@burnoutbookgroup⁠), co-author of Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, for a much-needed refresher on what burnout actually is. Together, they unpack what happens when our bodies get stuck in an incomplete stress response cycle, why modern life keeps us there, and what it actually takes to start feeling better. If you’re emotionally fried, physically depleted, or somehow both overstimulated and numb, this one’s for you. We’ll be back in two weeks with a brand new episode.

Further Reading: ⁠Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle⁠ by Emily Nagoski, PhD, and Amelia Nagoski, DMA

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